Douglas County Law Library
Judicial and Law Enforcement Center
111 East 11th Street
Lawrence, Kansas 66044
info@douglascolawlibrary.org
Phone: (785) 838-2477
Fax: (785) 838-2455


This Month in Legal History Archive

This page contains archived entries from the current year's "This Month in Legal History" column and links to the archived entries from previous years. The column features a different event from the history of law and jurisprudence of Douglas County, Kansas, that occurred during the month. It is published monthly in the Douglas County Law Library E-Mail Newsletter and on the Home page of this website. Entries will be added to this page, most recent at the bottom, following the end of the month in which they were published. Archived entries from previous years can be accessed by clicking on one of the links at the bottom of this page.



January 24-28, 1859 - Joel and Emily Grover violate the Fugitive Slave Act - On September 18, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed into law a new Fugitive Slave Act. It was one of five bills Fillmore signed into law as part of the Compromise of 1850. Prior to the Act, laws in the United States covering the capture and return of slaves who had run away from bondage were weak. Once fugitive slaves had escaped to a state that did not allow slavery, they were relatively safe from being forcibly returned to bondage. There was always the possibility of being discovered and taken back by a slave catcher, but the majority of people in Free states left them alone. Most officials did nothing unless specific legal action was taken by slave owners attempting to reclaim their slaves. Thus, most fugitive slaves who did not continue on to security in Canada were able to settle in northern states and begin life as relatively free men and women. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 changed all that. It required that all fugitive slaves be returned to their masters. It further required that Federal marshals and other officials actively seek out, capture, and return any fugitive slave, from anywhere in the United States, regardless of the laws of the state in which the fugitive was found. Failure to do so made the official liable to a $1,000 fine. In addition, any person who aided a runaway slave in any manner was subject to six months Federal imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. In September 1854, Joel Grover, born August 5, 1825, in Springwater, New York, came to what was to become Lawrence, Kansas, in the second party of Free-State immigrants sponsored by the New England Emigrant Aid Company. They came to make certain that the Territory of Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a state that did not allow slavery. That November, Grover was appointed Constable for the First District, Territory of Kansas, and served as marshal of the newly established town of Lawrence. On November 27 of the following year, he was commissioned as Colonel of the 6th Regiment, First Brigade of Kansas Volunteers, by James Henry Lane, "to defend the City of Lawrence from threatened destruction by foreign invaders" during the Wakarusa War, the war without a battle, when the Free-State town was threatened by a large force of pro-slavery men. On October 13, 1857, Grover married Emily Jane Hunt. She had been born September 1, 1839, in Medway, Massachusetts, and was described as a passionate abolitionist. She had come to Kansas in 1855 in the care of Charles Robinson, future first Governor of the State of Kansas, and had worked for him and his wife as their housekeeper prior to her marriage to Grover. In 1858, Grover built a stone barn on the farm he and Emily had acquired about three miles southwest of Lawrence. On January 24, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown arrived on the doorstep of Joel and Emily Grover with twelve people escaping to freedom. The Grovers were conductors on the Underground Railroad, the nationwide network of clandestine safe houses run by abolitionists who assisted fugitive slaves to escape to freedom. Joel and Emily did this in spite of the risks it entailed to all they had built up over the past few years. Their participation was known by certain members of the abolitionist community, so when John Brown came to the area escorting twelve human beings fleeing slavery, he came to them. Five weeks earlier, on December 19, 1858, Brown had received a request from Jim Daniels, a slave who had come into Kansas from his home in Missouri, ostensibly to sell brooms, but in reality seeking help for his family. Daniels had asked the abolitionist to rescue his wife and children who were about to be sold and sent away south. The next day, December 20th, Brown and his men went into Vernon County, Missouri, and freed 11 slaves, including the family of Daniels, and brought them into Kansas. Near the town of Garnett, Kansas, a baby boy was born to Daniels' wife, who named her new freeborn son John Brown Daniels. When John Brown arrived on the doorstep of Joel and Emily Grover on January 24, 1859, with twelve tired, hungry souls, the Grovers took them in. They hid the fugitives in their barn, and by taking in and sheltering the runaway slaves, they violated the Fugitive Slave Act. If the fugitives were discovered on their property, Joel and Emily each risked receiving six months in Federal prison and a $1,000 fine for each of their twelve guests. The fugitives stayed in the Grover's barn until the 28th, when Brown moved them along on their road to freedom, eventually taking them all the way to Detroit, Michigan, where the fugitives crossed to safety in Canada. The presence of fugitives on their property did not diminish the Grover's standing in the community, as witnessed by Joel serving as Douglas County Commissioner later that year. His standing in the community was further illustrated by his being elected to represent the 36th District in the Kansas House for the 1868/69 term. The Grovers stayed on their farm the rest of their lives, eventually parenting seven children. Joel died July 28, 1879. Emily died in 1921. The farm passed through several hands until it was sold and subdivided into suburban lots as part of a growing Lawrence. In the 1980s, the City of Lawrence acquired the barn, by then surrounded by houses and lawns, and converted it into a fire station, preserving the majority of the structure. In 2006, the barn was deactivated as a fire station and the City began looking for how to utilize the building in the future. One proposal was to turn the barn into an Underground Railroad Interpretative Center/Abolition Museum. On February 14, 2006, the Lawrence City Commission passed an ordinance designating the barn a landmark on the Lawrence Register of Historic Place, and on January 20, 2009, Lawrence Mayor Michael Dever signed a proclamation commemorating the stay of the twelve "freedom-seekers" in the Grover Barn. At present, the barn is being used by the City for storage and its future remains uncertain. (From: Publications of the Kansas State Historical Society, embracing biographical sketches…at Topeka, January 29, 1886. Kansas Publishing House, Topeka, 1886, p. 40; Joel Grover, Kansas Legislators Past & Present, State Library of Kansas; A History of Lawrence from the earliest settlement to the close of the rebellion, by Richard Cordley, E. F. Caldwell, Lawrence, Kansas, 1895, Chapter 1; Militia Commission, issued by James H. Lane to Joel Grover, November 27, 1855; Emily Hunt Grover, by Diana Welsh, The Lecompton Reenactor, v. 3, issue 9 (September 2008), Lecompton, Kansas; Letter, William A. Phillips, State Marshall, to Joel Grover, June 24, 1859; The Grover Barn: A Proposal for Preservation, by Craig S. Crosswhite, Unpublished Manuscript, July 10, 1980; and, Proclamation, January 20, 2009. Published 1/10.)  Back to top of page

February 26, 1861 - Louis Carpenter records his first case as Probate Judge of Douglas County, Kansas - Louis Carpenter came to Kansas in the late 1850s, and by early 1859 was serving as a Deputy Clerk of the United States District Court of Kansas Territory, 2nd Judicial District for Douglas County. He had been born December 14, 1829, in New York State. When and how he studied law is not known, but by February 26, 1861, he had been appointed Probate Judge of Douglas County, and on that date recorded his first case. He continued as probate judge until early 1863, his last case being recorded on January 10th of that year. During his tenure as probate judge, many important events took place, both in his personal life and nationally. The American Civil War, having smoldered in Kansas for seven years, broke out across the entire nation in the Spring of 1861. In 1862, Carpenter bought, sold, traded, and bartered lots in Lawrence, Kansas, the results being two large adjoining lots and sufficient bricks and foundation stone for a large brick house, which he subsequently had built. Also in 1862, he married his fiancée, Mary E. Barber, and, in the election that fall, ran an unsuccessful campaign as the candidate of the Union Party for Attorney General of Kansas. Around the time he left the bench, he was appointed as Kansas Supreme Court Reporter, and through the spring and summer of 1863, he compiled and edited material intended to be published as the first report of the Kansas Supreme Court. He and his new wife were at home on the morning of August 21, 1863, when William Quantrill and his band of 400 Confederate guerillas attacked Lawrence, killing and burning as they went. Several of the raiders came to Carpenter's home, and when he replied "New York" to the question "Where are you from," they began shooting him. He collapsed and died in his back yard. He was eventually buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, near the final resting place of many other victims of Quantrill's Raid. (From: Judge Louis Carpenter page, Douglas County Law Library website. Published 2/10.)  Back to top of page



Archived entries from past years

2006
2007
2008
2009




For more information, contact the Law Library at: info@douglascolawlibrary.org.


Comments to: Webmaster: Kerry Altenbernd, Law Librarian, Douglas County Law Library, Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, 111 East 11th Street, Lawrence, KS  66044.

Valid HTML 4.01!

Created: March 4, 2008; Revised March 1, 2010